Ionospheric effects of the solar flares of September 23, 1998 and July 29, 1999 as deduced from global GPS network data

Abstract

This paper presents data from first global positioning system (GPS) measurements of global response of the ionosphere to solar flares of September 23, 1998 and July 29, 1999. The analysis used novel technology of a global detection of ionospheric effects from solar flares as developed by one of the authors (Afraimovich, Radio Sci. 35 (2000) 1417). The essence of the method is that use is made of appropriate filtering and a coherent processing of variations in total electron content (TEC) in the ionosphere which is determined from GPS data, simultaneously for the entire set of visible (over a given time interval) GPS satellites at all stations used in the analysis. It was found that fluctuations of TEC, obtained by removing the linear trend of TEC with a time window of about 5 min, are coherent for all stations and the line-of-sight to the GPS satellites on the dayside of the Earth. The time profile of TEC responses is similar to the time behavior of hard X-ray emission variations during flares if the relaxation time of electron density disturbances in the ionosphere of order 50–100 s is introduced. No such effect on the nightside of the Earth has been detected yet.